


Tell Me About Him

by greengrlelphie



Series: Heal Me [1]
Category: A Star is Born (2018)
Genre: F/M, Mother/Daughter relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 01:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17992160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greengrlelphie/pseuds/greengrlelphie
Summary: Ally's daughter has questions about her Dad.





	Tell Me About Him

“Mom, tell me about Dad.”

A simple request, albeit one Ally had been dreading for some time now. Lily was getting older now and asking more questions that she wasn’t sure she was ready to answer given her daughter’s tender age and the tragedy that surrounded everything. But she supposed that with the age of the Internet, Lily already had read things about her father that she had questions about. Questions about why her dad wasn’t here and what happened to make him do what he did. Things Ally had not really talked about in years in explicit detail.

Lily was her miracle. A baby she had not planned on having but found herself pregnant with less than three weeks after her husband’s death. In her grief, she had found a reason to keep on living and to go forward. For the baby Jack had left behind for her. Rez was less than thrilled that she was pregnant and had tried, more than once, to dissuade her about motherhood and her pregnancy. After her fourth month, she told him to shut up about it and he never mentioned it again the rest of the pregnancy, thankfully. Her father had been supportive and so excited to become a grandfather. And all those closest to her rallied around her during the pregnancy to keep her spirits high, especially Bobby and Ramon.

Lily Jacqueline Maine screamed her way into the world in the early morning hours that April morning after nineteen exhausting hours of labor and thirty-nine weeks of pregnancy. During that time, Ally was terrified of what kind of mother she might be and how she would do this without Jack. But then she looked at Lily and saw Jack in her eyes. And from that moment on, Ally vowed to love and protect her daughter no matter what because she was the living, breathing proof of the love they had shared. 

“Okay,” she conceded as she came over and sat beside Lily. “What would you like I know?”

“Anything,” Lily said. “Everybody at school talks about their dads...I don’t know a lot about mine.”

“Oh honey...” she replied. Ally got up and went over, grabbing a book from the piano. Inside were lyrics, photos, and other memories she had put away in there. Opening it up, she smiled as she saw the photo of Jack. 

Ally had talked about Jack in the years since he had been gone, but there was so much that she did not want to overwhelm Lily with it all. Especially the parts that were more difficult to talk about.

“Do I look like him?” Lily asked as she looked at the photo.

Ally nodded, “Very much so. You have his eyes and his ears.”

Lily giggled. “Mom!”

Ally smiled and brushed her finger down her daughter’s nose, just as Jack had done to her own. “And my nose. Your Dad loved my nose, even though I used to hate it.”

“How did you meet?” Lily’s curiosity never ceased to amaze her. 

“We met at the drag bar where I was performing,” she laughed. “I used to be a waitress there a long time ago and they let me sing on Friday nights.”

“You did?!” Lily was shocked.

Ally nodded. “Uncle Ramon insisted that he meet me after...he liked my voice and asked me to have a drink with him.”

“Did you go?” 

“I did. We went to this place and I punched a guy...your Dad was famous and they wouldn’t leave him be. I got a little feisty.” That had been one thing that surprised the hell out of both her and Jack.

Her daughter’s eyes widened as she gasped. “You said that punching someone isn’t the right thing to do, Mom.”

“Yeah, I don’t always follow the best advice I give...but after, your Dad took me to a grocery store to get frozen peas to put on my hand.”

“What happened after that?” Lily was glued to the story.

“Well we talked for a while and I sang part of this song that came to my head,” she continued. “It was something I thought of after getting to know him a little more. And then he took me home after. He was a gentleman.”

Lily beamed. She loved hearing any stories about her Dad. And as painful as it was for Ally to talk about Jack, she wanted Lily to know her father. Jack had his faults, but he was a good man that had loved her and would have loved Lily with all of his heart.

“You said that Dad was sick...that he died because he was sick?” Lily asked as she turned the pages of the book.

Ally nodded. “Your Dad had a disease...one that was very difficult to fight and ultimately, it got the best of him.”

She had consulted therapists about how to bring up the topic of suicide to her daughter, who was barely ten. They had all told her to explain it in terms of an illness for now and then broaden the conversation as she got older to explain suicide and that her father had been mentally ill and had been struggling for over half of his life. She didn’t want her daughter to fall down the same paths that Jack had, with alcohol and drugs, which was why they had honest conversations about that and had since she was old enough to understand what they were.

“Do you think he would be proud of me?”

“Of course he would...you would be the light of his life and he would tell you that you were the best thing he ever did,” she told her daughter. “You have all the best parts of him. His love of music and the gift of being able to hear something and play it back on the piano. And he would be so incredibly proud of your talent. He would also be proud that you are always on the honor roll at school and that you’ve trained Charlie to do all kinds of tricks.”

Lily laughed out loud as she looked over at Charlie. “He’s a good boy.”

“He loved your Daddy too. They were inseparable,” she mused quietly. “And I know that he would love you more than anything in the world. We talked about having a family...your Dad and me, but we never said when. And then I lost him, so I thought that I wouldn’t ever get the chance for that dream. But you were born a few months later and I got the best gift in the world.”

Reaching over, she hugged her daughter and kissed her head. There would be plenty more to explain later on, but for now, she knew that she would be able to tell her daughter the good things about her Dad and remember the better times when she had the love of her life.


End file.
